US Ex-Ambassador to Russia McFaul slams Trump for ‘thanking’ Putin before gravely insulting the Russian President

Mr. McFaul must apologise for his inappropriate and insulting remarks.

Michael McFaul is an extremely controversial figure in Russia and the wider world. Described as the ‘architect of Barack Obama’s Russia policy’, McFaul served as Obama’s Ambassador to Moscow between 2012 and 2014 before being barred from entering Russia in 2016.

McFaul was known to conduct subversive activities in Russia aimed at undermining Russia’s democracy and tampering with Russia’s political process.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswomen Maria Zakharova has said of McFaul,

“Michael did his best to damage these bilateral relations”.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry further stated that McFaul took an,

“active part in ruining bilateral relations (between the US and Russia) and persistently promoted the idea of exerting pressure on Moscow”.

From the United States, McFaul has taken a consistently harsh line on Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson’s stated policy of developing improved relations with Russia, something which has been made more difficult by the latest round of Congressional sanctions which Donald Trump called unconstitutional.

Some say that McFaul was responsible for Barack Obama’s move to seize Russian diplomatic property in the US, legal territory of the Russian Federation according to the Vienna Convention. At the same time as the property theft, Obama kicked out Russian diplomats and staff from the country.

At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin refrained from taking retaliatory measures, preferring instead to wait and see if the issue could be resolved by then President-elect Trump.

Having seen Trump to be powerless to stop the new sanctions combined with America’s failure to resolve the diplomatic crisis started by Obama, Russia reacted by expelling 775 US diplomatic staff from Russia.

This has led McFaul to go on an Russophobic Twitter rampage which including grave insults against President Putin as well as a mischaracterisation of Russia’s expulsion of diplomat staff as a first move when in reality it was delayed retaliation for Obama’s opening salvo at the end of 2016.

The following are McFaul’s absurd Tweets,

Trump just applauded cuts of 755 in Russian embassy. Maybe he should look to trim his own staff? https://t.co/KKF0tP0PL2

The series of deranged Tweets do however reveal an important accidental confession. McFaul has stated that the lack of extra diplomats in Russia will retard America’s ability to find out what Russia’s military, foreign policy and biological warfare abilities are. These statements would appear to imply that US diplomats in Russia are spies, a position which is incompatible with diplomacy.

Finally, calling the President of Russia a ‘punk’ which in this context appears to be synonymous with calling him a hooligan, is totally unacceptable. Mr. McFaul must apologise for this insulting remark as it is inappropriate language for a former diplomat to use in public.